A Blog About An Asian Medical Student. Yes that's redundant.

Saturday, December 17, 2016

aka If It Sounds Like A Rant, Walks Like A Rant, Talks Like A Rant, Must Be a Duck

aka This Is A Rant

Back in the day, before I set up doyoubelieve.ca, I used some bastardized Hotmail/Microsoft publishing tool that helped me express my nonsense around the world. This is pre Facebook filling that need, so when I had some thoughts that were shorter than my regularly hyperbloated blog posts with unnecessarily dramatic beats, I did the QUick blOG - the pleasing sounding QUOG.

Welcome back you fat mess.

...

In reference to myself AND the word I've Frankensteined.

^-_-^

I need some advice.

As long suspected, and honestly as I've always feared, my medical and comedy life are clashing.

I work in health care and have had pooncomedy.com for the past two years, with an accompanying Facebook Page for about that long too. I've done comedy longer than that, and as I was advised back in medical school, I did my best to keep my medical career separate from my comedy one. It's actually why I use a fake name on Facebook at all.

A lot of my humour is related to medicine and the life of a doctor, but there is absolutely no patient information or confidentiality exposed. I am incredibly careful with that, both out of respect and fear of litigation.

Since I've started, I would not mention I am a comedian to my patients, though some who have looked me up incidentally found it entertaining. I've had some patients watch my shows, and some audience members later become my patients. It's been fun, insightful, and most importantly, separate. I have also been paid to do stand up at medical conferences/shows, and it has been a known fact to most of my colleagues. I do not promote myself at work to any of my staff, though do mention it to other residents and students.

A week ago, a patient who was upset at her care called my boss to the effect of "I found this guy's comedy - don't you screen your people?"

To be clear, as confirmed with my senior staff, this person was medically managed appropriately. It seems it may have been a personality conflict with me, and my notation/charting was very thorough.

This was mostly upsetting because it is my personal life. On my comedy website I have a disclaimer specifying I am not affiliated with any hospital in regards to my comedy.

I have already contacted my medical resident representatives who have stated that this is quite unprecedented in the medical field, but that because my professional comedy life is separate, they don't believe it should be an issue.

Today I received an email from my top boss, who, while cognizant of my disclaimers, has asked me to take my comedy website down.

Have any of you been asked to stop doing something you do publicly by your workplace? My suspicion is that if I had a website for my work as a street performer, acting, or medical advising on TV/movies, this would be a non-issue.